Shareeka Epps

A young actress with a seemingly old soul, Shareeka Epps stunned audiences with her honest and intelligent performance as Brooklyn teenager Drey in the gritty independent film, "Half Nelson" (2006). T...
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Annette Bening seems to have found her niche.
After Fourteen Women, The Women, and A Woman of No Importance, she's now signed on to star in Mother and Child, alongside Naomi Watts. The film follows two women -- one (Bening) who gave up her daughter (Watts) 35 years earlier and an African-American ( Kerry Washington) who is looking to adopt. Shareeka Epps (Half Nelson) rounds out the cast.
Directed by Rodrigo Garcia (Carnivale, Six Feet Under and Anne Hathaway's new thriller, Passengers), the film is slated to begin in LA in the early part of 2009, Variety reports. Click Here to Read the Entire Story on Wiretap MORE NEWS: McDreamy Weighs in on 'Grey' Firing

Quirky road movie Little Miss Sunshine and classroom drama Half Nelson will lead all contenders at the Spirit Awards in February after picking up five nominations apiece yesterday.
The two films will compete with American Gun, The Dead Girl and Mexican movie Pan's Labyrinth for the Best Film prize, while Little Miss Sunshine's Alan Arkin and Paul Dano are both nominated for Best Supporting Actor honors.
Ryan Gosling will compete for the Best Actor prize for his portrayal of a teacher with a drug problem in Half Nelson.
Gosling's costar Shareeka Epps is also nominated for Best Supporting Actress.
Maverick filmmaker Robert Altman, who died last week, earned a Best Director nomination for his final film, A Prairie Home Companion, while new 007 Daniel Craig is also among the Spirit Supporting Actor nominees for his portrayal of a murderer in drama Infamous.
The awards, formerly known as the Independent Spirit Awards, will be handed out in Santa Monica, California, on Feb. 24.
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When he's on his game Dan Dunne (Gosling) is the kind of teacher any kid would feel lucky to have--dynamic interactive and enthusiastic. He helps make history relevant for his junior-high students in a bleak corner of Brooklyn. But Dan is a victim of the very concepts he teaches. Just as much of history is a struggle between opposing forces Dan's life is a battle between the idealism that fuels him in the classroom and the emptiness and despair that drive him to get high every day after school. He tries to clean up his act after one of his favorite students 13-year-old Drey (Epps) catches him with a crack pipe in the locker room. But even their burgeoning friendship--and the chance to save stoic-but-vulnerable Drey from the vices he knows all too well--may not be enough to set Dan on the path to redemption. Ever since his blistering breakthrough performance in 2001's The Believer Gosling has been touted as one of the best actors of his generation--a reputation that's only going to be cemented based on his work in Half Nelson. He completely disappears into his role making Dan's inner torment and fallibility both real and heartbreaking. Dan's enthusiasm for teaching can't overcome his conviction he's a failure and the desperate resignation Gosling infuses Dan with in his lowest moments is agonizing. Making her feature debut Epps is almost equally impressive. Drey is no stranger to the world of drugs and dealing; her brother's in jail thanks to his association with slick dealer Frank (Anthony Mackie) and it would be all to easy for her to follow in his footsteps. But Epps gives Drey a contemplative self-possession that belies her age and lends weight to her actions. Director Ryan Fleck developed Half Nelson from his own 20-minute short film Gowanus Brooklyn an award winner at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. As a feature the story shows some signs of padding--in almost two hours very little really happens to Dan that couldn't be covered in the original 20-minute run time. But pacing and plot aren't really the film's main concerns. Half Nelson is a thoughtful character study of a deeply flawed man and the circumstances that have pushed him to his breaking point. With its gritty setting (Dan's apartment is particularly forlorn) mournful music and air of tragic inevitability Half Nelson is unlikely to be described as the feel-good movie of any year. But it does establish Fleck as a talented actor's director which bodes well both for him and for indie film fans.

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A young actress with a seemingly old soul, Shareeka Epps stunned audiences with her honest and intelligent performance as Brooklyn teenager Drey in the gritty independent film, "Half Nelson" (2006). Though the film marked Epps' feature film debut, she exhibited a raw talent for acting that positioned her as one of Hollywood's young talents worth keeping an eye on. Praised by numerous film critics, Epps won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Performance and was named Best Supporting Actress by the Boston Society of Film Critics for her gritty role in the cautionary film, which co-starred an equally well received Ryan Gosling.<p>Born in New York City, NY in 1989, Epps grew up in Brooklyn, where she attended William Alexander 51 Junior High School in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood. Though Epps never studied drama, she was active in music and dance, and performed in school productions of "West Side Story" and "Annie" in her early teens. Recommended to aspiring filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden by a drama teacher at her junior high, Epps was asked to audition for their short film, "Gowanus, Brooklyn" (2004) - a 19-minute version of a feature script the pair had written together. Though she was up against a number of other teenagers for the part, Epps landed the lead role of Drey, a wise-beyond-her-years 13-year-old girl who stumbles upon her social studies teacher smoking crack in the girls' locker room. Shot on digital video for $1,000, "Brooklyn" went on to win the Grand Jury Prize for short filmmaking at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.<p>Scraping together finances for a feature version of "Brooklyn," Fleck and Boden contacted Epps about reprising her role as Drey in the now re-titled feature version, "Half Nelson" (2006). Though the filmmakers were initially concerned that Epps may have grown up too much to portray the role (Epps was 15 by this time), she still appeared young enough to be re-cast in the role. Starring opposite Ryan Gosling in "Nelson," Epps wowed critics with her earnest and stoic performance of a teenage girl who befriends her crack-addicted teacher and mentor (Gosling). Conveying a mixture of innocence and intelligence through facial expressions rather than dialogue, Epps' performance earned her much-deserved critical acclaim. She was named Best Supporting Actress by the Boston Society of Film Critics and runner-up by the New York Film Critics Society in 2006. She was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the Independent Spirit Awards. There was even Oscar buzz in the air, as <i>USA Today</i> pushed for the Academy to consider her, come nomination time in January of 2007.<p>Still a teenager however, Epps managed to maintain a focus on academics, entering her senior year in high school at New York's Binghamton High School in the fall of 2006. Pursuing acting on the side, Epps went on to land a role in the action sequel "Alien vs. Predator: AVP2" (2007).